SUN TV wins bid for new IPL team

Regional television network Sun TV Network bought the Hyderabad Franchise for an amount of Rs. 85.05 crores per year for a five year deal. Sun TV, owned by the Chennai-based Maran group, put in the highest bid of 85.05 crore a year for the rights to the franchise in the lucrative Twenty20 league that was founded in 2008. Sun TV beat PVP Ventures, who offered Rs. 69.03 crore to buy the franchise. The franchise was initially bought by Deccan Chronicles for Rs 562 Crore in 2008.

Jaypee Holdings and PVP Ventures were said to be front-runners to buy the Franchise but SUN TV's bid of 85.05 crore turned out to be much higher than the second highest bid, that of PVP ventures for 69.03 crore.

"SUN TV Network have won the Hyderabad Franchise for an amount of Rs 85.05 crores per year. This Franchise fee represents a premium of over a 100% above the amount paid by DCHL for the Hyderabad Franchise in 2008," BCCI Secretary Sanjay Jagdale said in a release.

"The SUN TV Network bid was substantially higher than the second bid of PVP Ventures, which was Rs 69.03 crores," Jagdale added.

Interestingly, the fee is much lower compared to the last two franchisees, Pune Warriors and Kochi Tuskers, that were bought 2 years ago.

The new franchises will have to submit a Rs. 20 cr performance deposit during submission of bids to ensure the board has the money to pay players & support staff if a franchise fails to do so.

It was not known whether Sun TV will retain the team's previous name of the Deccan Chargers.

The Deccan Chronicle media group, which bought the Chargers before the inaugural IPL season, was thrown out of the league due to financial violations including failure to pay players' salaries.

The Sun TV network runs 32 channels, mainly in south Indian languages, which reach 95 million households, according to its website. The network is also viewed in 27 other countries.